BRONXVILLE, N.Y. -- Sarah Lawrence College students got a surprise visit from one of the school's most famous alums at its commencement ceremony on Friday, May 23, when news and talk show legend Barbara Walters took the stage to wish the graduates well, according to a release.

Walters, who recently retired from "The View," announced that she is donating her archive of tapes, photographs, and papers to her alma mater. She also recently donated $1 million for student scholarships.

“We are thrilled by this new gift from our extraordinary alumna so that her legacy can be shared with students, scholars, and beyond,” college President Karen Lawrence said in a statement.

CNN personality Fareed Zakaria was the keynote speaker at the graduation ceremony. He joked that he would be remembered as the man who spoke after Barbara Walters at the graduation ceremony.

Zakaria also spoke to the graduates of the importance of a liberal arts education.

“I now realize that the most valuable thing I picked up in college and graduate school was not a specific set of facts or a piece of knowledge but rather how to acquire knowledge," according to a transcript of his remarks. “At its essence, a liberal education is an education to free the mind from dogma, from controls, from constraints. It is an exercise in freedom."